大象传媒

I was born in Codicote in 1931 so I was eight when the war started. I had a twin sister. We were born when mother was 38. Our brother was in the Royal Signals. He went to Africa and caught malaria, before going to India and Burma.
I went to Codicote (Junior) School and we dug trenches in the school playing field, but mother made me go home when a raid started.
Evacuees came with their headmaster. They went to the school for half a day and we went for the other half. Some went back but others stayed on after the war.
My father made shutters for the windows, and we went under the stairs or under the table when there was a raid. Mother woke us up if it was night. We could see London aglow as there were no lights anywhere.
My father was a fire-watcher, walking up and down the streets. Hatfield and Luton got bombed, and then the planes came round Codicote and dropped bombs across the fields.
Towards the end of the war I went to Luton and Bedford and remember seeing American troops lying on the grass with the girls!
Dad had three allotments so we always had plenty of food. He had chickens too. He had a large piece of cheese as extra allowance for working in the building trade. Towards the end of the war he used to go and repair bomb-damaged roofs.

This story has been submitted by Hitchin Museum on behalf of Mrs Wilman

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